An Online Resource for Buddhists Associated with the United States Armed Forces

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Welcome to the Buddhist Military Sangha! This is a nonpolitical and nonsectarian forum for Buddhists serving in the US Armed Forces.

-Provide a welcoming and positive forum for Buddhists currently serving or who have served in the military to communicate with and support one another.-Recognize and promote honorable military service as in accord with the Eightfold Path's Right Livelihood.-Correct misconceptions about Buddhists serving in the military.-Help Buddhists unfamiliar with the military understand the jobs of their relatives and friends who are serving or who have served, and who love and respect the military profession.-Help Buddhist Sanghas learn how to support and understand Buddhist military members, veterans, and their families.- Represent the importance of religious pluralism and diversity in today's military population, and by extension in American society.-Provide information about Buddhist Military Chaplaincy in US Armed Forces.

Monday, December 20, 2010

Here is an article from the Austalian news network; this is interesting. Although this article is about Transcendental (TM) Meditation, there are many other different forms of meditation out there. This is going to be a new field to explore, the links between Buddhist, and other forms of meditation, and trying to treat stresses. This is something chaplains have to deal with often. Any thoughts?

The event in New York drew an unlikely alliance ranging from fashion designer Donna Karan to traumatised veterans of World War II, Vietnam and Iraq.

Uniting them was a belief that transcendental meditation - dubbed TM for short - is the cheapest, most effective and medication-free way of healing people who have suffered severe stress in war and any other extreme experience.

"I'm a great supporter of transcendental meditation. I've been using it for almost 40 years now. I think it's a great tool for anyone to have," said Eastwood, best known for playing hardened characters on screen.

The fundraising event at the Metropolitan Museum of Art was organised by experimental filmmaker David Lynch, whose Foundation for Consciousness-Based Education and Peace encourages meditation along the lines espoused by famed guru Maharishi Mahesh Yogi.

Lynch has launched a project, named "Operation Warrior Wellness", aimed to train 10,000 veterans in the art of finding inner peace.

Critics have cast doubt on the value of meditation for treating psychological disorders.

But Lynch says there are "a lot of misunderstandings about meditation".

He believes the technique can help everyone from disruptive school pupils to soldiers with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

PTSD is an increasingly high-profile problem among servicemen returning from Afghanistan and Iraq, a large number of whom are believed to fear revealing their disorder to military health staff.

Vietnam vet Dan Burks gave a moving account of the mental scars he carried after a battle in which he says he killed Vietnamese soldiers and lost many of his own troops.

"[PTSD] is a wound. It takes your life away, just like losing a limb," he said.

"But guess what - you can get rid of it."

He described his life after discovery of transcendental meditation as "the difference between heaven and hell".

Another veteran, World War II pilot, Jerry Yellin, told the fundraiser that for three decades after the end of the war against Japan he "found no satisfaction in life in anything I did".

At age 51, he took up TM and says he found peace.

"We have the ability to teach young people who are suffering tremendously ... young people who are in a foreign land," he said of today's veterans.

One of those, a former infantry soldier in Iraq, says TM "cleared the skies and I could tell where I was going".

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